Schlumbergera seedlings: assorted (again)

Ready to knock down another eight seedling names in hopes of eventually maybe being able to start on the 2018-19 season? Of course you are.

374A Hi Hungry I'm Dad

Seed parent: NOID yellow (batch #1)

Explanation: Another non-yellow seedling of the NOID yellow, another comedy-adjacent name.¹

Also considered: Idée Fixe, Lawful Neutral, Undefined Expectations


252A Don't Call Me Surly

Seed parent: 025A Clownfish

Explanation: I dunno. It just seems angry to me for some reason.

Also considered: Chestburster, Loud And Clear, New Sheriff In Town


323A Arcturus

Seed parent: 'Exotic Dancer'

Explanation: Though I have still not managed to get a good answer as to what color the star Arcturus actually appears to be to the naked eye (some sources say red, some say orange; photos are no help because of how often colors are adjusted), I feel like this has to be fairly close. Also process of elimination -- when the moment came to make the decision, I liked Arcturus better than the other names I was considering. Previously considered for 056A Demons Begone, 015A Nielub, and 067B Clyde.

Also considered: Dodge The Bullet, Fighting Girlfriend, Sinclair Lewis


225A Pure Energy

Seed parent: 'Exotic Dancer'

Explanation: A previously-considered (for 011A Annie Lennox and 062B Royal Grandma) name that honors someone from my life.²

Also considered: Adrenaline, No Me Juegue, Playing With Matches


426A Epicenter

Seed parent: NOID magenta (batch #2)

Explanation: The selected photo doesn't show it very well, but in the other photos I took of this seedling, the petals were splayed in such a way that there were sort of concentric rings of color around the center of the bloom, in a way that (to my mind) sort of resembles shake maps of earthquakes, but that's probably just me. Previously considered for 420A Franceska Mann.

Also considered: Merry-Go-Round, Ornery, What About My Needs


376A In The Moment

Seed parent: NOID yellow (batch #1)

Explanation: Though Caesar Cut was very appealing, seedlings with unusual shapes are invariably much more typical the next time they bloom. (As an example, compare 379A Can't Find The World's first flower, from December 2017, to its most recent one, from October 2018.) So the name would only make sense for a very short period of time. In The Moment was the one I liked next best; it's yet another name intended to honor a person from my life.

Also considered: Caesar Cut, Tightly Wound, Up Up And Away


467A But You Might Like It

Seed parent: 082A Strawberry Madeleine

Explanation: And it's lucky for this seedling that later blooms tend to be more normal-looking, because otherwise I'd have thrown it in the garbage already. This name was previously considered for 018B Fifth-Year Senior, and the story behind it is told there. I suppose this also counts as an honorific name, though that feels weird to say: the church lady in question wasn't really a big part of my life or anything.

Also considered: More Of An Inner Beauty, Quarter To Five³


147A Lot's Wife

Seed parent: NOID peach

Explanation: Though I still have unnamed seedlings remaining, 147A was the very last seedling to bloom in the 2017-18 season. The name references the story in Genesis chapter 19, where Lot and his family were told to flee the city of Sodom before God destroyed it, and warned not to look back or stop for a moment, so they wouldn't be caught up in the destruction of the city. Lot's wife looked back at the city anyway, and was turned into a pillar of salt.

This story always bothered me as a kid, because I knew that I myself wouldn't have been able to resist looking back, and the punishment seemed so out of proportion to the offense. In adulthood, I've learned that this was probably the author of Genesis throwing in an older folk explanation for the weird rock formations in this particular area as a way to punch up the story (no superhero movies back then; they had to make their own fun), and it bothers me a lot less.

In context of the seedling, the name refers to the color (salt being mostly white) and the timing (looking back at the rest of the season even though I'm kind of rushing to get through this so we can look at the next season).

Also considered: End Transmission, Last Place You Look, Season Finale


The seedlings remaining to be named are all particularly difficult cases, for which nothing I've come up with so far has seemed quite right, so I'm all ears if anybody has suggestions. I keep suggested names around forever, so even if I don't pick your name for one of these eight, it may always come up again for some other seedling. It's happened before.⁴ They are:

157A and 172A.

174A and 197A.

350A and 421A.

434A and 470A.
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¹(Also 369A Punch Line and 375A Who's On First.)
² There are a lot of those now: 023A Stoked, 075A Pushover, 082A Strawberry Madeleine, 094A Some Clowns, 095A Perturbed, 096A I'm Really Sorry, 101A Julius Erving, 138A Jellybean Cake, 165A Assertive, 167A East Of East St. Louis, 180A Miss Emma, 187A Funny Farm, 217A Blood Frenzy, 236A Only God Can Judge Me, 290A Our Lady Of Assumption, 380A Magic Words, and 473A Je Me Souviens.
³ Quarter To Five because it was the second to last seedling of the season to bloom; the metaphor refers to the last fifteen minutes of a 9-to-5 workday.
⁴ Reader-suggested/-inspired names, so far: 067A Cyndi Lauper, 083A Psychedelic Bunny, 095B Pele's Lipstick, 130A Myrtha, and 144A Diaphanous Gown. I'd bet there are one or two others, that aren't on this list because I don't remember where their names came from.